It's all a simulation!

Advaita vedānta gets as close as anyone ever has to answering the question about the true nature of reality. In other words, the question is -- is consciousness fundamental, and the material world derivative or illusory, or is the material world real and primary, with consciousness emerging from it? From first principles, the only thing that can be directly and unambiguously known is experience itself: subjective awareness. That's the classic “Cogito, ergo sum” insight: I think, therefore I am. But more precisely, it’s not “I think,” but "experience is happening" and literally everything else comes through experience and is within it. Even if these other things are "real", they are known only as contents of consciousness. Advaita vedānta explains this brilliantly, but is a fairly complex work of philosophy. I came across this really amazing Sanskrit shloka (composed in the 8th century CE in "Vivekachudamani") that simplifies this concept: